Bing - <AUTHOR> http://www.bing.com/ComingSoon

<comment><USER2> What I find fascinating about this is not the technology itself. It is that Microsoft has, as much as possible, done their best to hide the fact that this is a Microsoft product. Unless one looks at the page footer, which is in a small light grey text (in zone-out land, in other words), one would have no idea.

This is right in line with their "surprise! it's a PC" campaign. If one watches the corresponding campaigns, Apple is unabashedly proud of being Apple, Google about being Google, but Microsoft seems to be embarrassed about being Microsoft.

I am rather curious where this will go, and how consumers will react. Of course, Microsoft wins if people ignore the company and just buy the product.

<comment><USER3> Monopoly/near-monopoly has let them abuse their brand to the point of trashing it.

One ironic aspect of this: one can see this as Microsoft trying to compete by offering "better customer service," if you can call repackaging search results "customer service." Perhaps it's better termed as "superior, seamless customer experience."

Perhaps they're onto something. If Google really doesn't offer better data than Microsoft or Yahoo, then Google's advantage is in their Brand. Microsoft can combat this by starting a new Brand, and stand behind it with the same quality of data, but a superior customer experience.

EDIT: On second thought, Microsoft may be behind the game again. The target to chase shouldn't be Google Search. I suspect it should be Facebook and Twitter. Google Wave might leapfrog Microsoft here.

<comment><USER4> That's a really good point about customer service. Google's customer service is awful (AdWords & AdSense) because they're so insistent on not involving a human. In the same way as 90's MS they've used their monopoly as an excuse for bad customer experiences.

Testing indicates its not the result quality that makes people like Google's results better, but the brand. So I agree - going directly after the brand makes a lot of sense.

<comment><USER3> _because they're so insistent on not involving a human_

Classic case of something that was a tactical advantage becoming a key weakness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Step 1 for building a popular search engine might be to stop changing the name every 2 years. Just a thought.

<comment><USER6> Step 1 is knowing that the name alone doesn't mean shit.

<comment><USER7> The brand is the only thing that matters. Everyone here saw the post last week, consumers gave Live Search the highest marks when it was dressed up with a Google logo and stylesheet.

The brand is it. And branding doesn't sink or swim based on name alone, but it isn't a trivial factor.

<comment><USER8> I don't buy that. I've never been able to get any useful results out of live.com. It's just dire technology.

<comment><USER9> Right, but you're one data point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Bing Is Not Google B.I.N.G.

Anyone else notice that? Microsoft is using the GNU style recursive acronym. Irony at its finest.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's a video demo of bing, a supersonic flyover of the features. The demo is obviously consumer oriented, but the teaser in interesting enough that I will give it a try for my consumer searches. Recently my SO and I made a trip to Virginia and Washington for her daughter's wedding. We did a lot of tedious planning using Google. If bing can ease the process, I'll use it.

Most of my searches are tech related. Google is pretty painful, but I hold little hope that bing is going to be my salvation. When in the name of <insert your favorite deity> is anyone going to implement HN-style modding for search results?

<comment><USER12> "When in the name of <insert your favorite deity> is anyone going to implement HN-style modding for search results?"

Google already has it. Have you played with SearchWiki?

<comment><USER13> A user's SearchWiki rankings do not influence other users' search results. Yet. Till that happens, it's not really HN-style modding.

<comment><USER14> How about xmarks (used to be foxmarks)? They highlight search results depending on which of their users have bookmarked them (they are a bookmark sync service so they have access to that data). After all, bookmarking is a way of upmodding. <http://www.xmarks.com/about/features/smarter_search>

<comment><USER13> Xmarks search is indeed a cool concept (much like delicious search), but I don't bookmark everything useful I find on the web - so bookmark-based search will never be quite as comprehensive.

In a way, search engines already account for up-modding by factoring in which links you click on when you are given a page of search results. But you are more likely to click on results already at the top, so I wouldn't give too much weight to that information.

The SearchWiki concept has a lot of potential if Google decides to go down that path though.

<comment><USER14> I agree that a bookmark based search will never be comprehensive. Neither will any other kind of social solution - I doubt anything will do sort of a search engine that looks at semantics.

The real problem with SearchWiki (or other upvoting/downvoting) is that you keep going back to the search page while your search is _failing_. As soon as you click through and find the page that you want, you stop - you do what you wanted and get on with your life. Whereas if that is the page you need and bookmark it (granted your point that we don't bookmark everything), that is a true and accurate indicator of success.

Since HN was explicitly mentioned upthread, it would be interesting to know how many people upvote/downvote stories (which you have to get back to the main page to do) versus comments (which are in your face in their totality when you are asked to vote). I can only speak for myself, but I vote on comments massively more often than I vote on stories, exactly for the reason I described. So in order for SearchWiki to really work for me, I want to express my happiness when I am viewing the target page, not the search page. (I am sure this can be accomplished in theory, I just don't think the support is currently there).

<comment><USER15> How about a _history_ -based search engine? A plugin that simply submits every link you visit (when your privacy features are off) to the aggregator, along with how long you kept each page open before you closed it/surfed away. I know it would be incredibly invasive, but it would basically be a Nielsen Box for the Internet.

<comment><USER14> I don't think you can do that just via the history. A lot of pages are just sitting there in my tabs because I am not paying attention to them, not because I am engrossed in them. You need to be able to see what the user is really doing.

I remember a while back in the UK there was a study to actually measure real attentiveness while the TV was on. Cameras were installed inside people's TVs to record the viewers so their focus could be noted. This was all very clearly explained to them, but as time went by, and people being people, they eventually started to forget the camera was there; so in some cases the poor researchers got a bigger share of, err, domestic activities than they bargained for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The name and logo is weak branding so far. But,I think that Google built their service not by marketing but by functionality. So they have a chance. However Googling something and Binging it is much different in verbiage.

I think that digg or (dig) is actually a great name for a search engine. I think for the branding after the fact it has to be something that works in a verb. Bing it! is better than live or MSN search it but still, bing?... Cannot help but think of Chandler Bing and it isn't as mathematically cool as Google is.

But I guess Bing does mean these, as to which it will become is yet to be determined.

\- Bing is a Unix program which is essentially a ping with added network throughput measurements. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bing_(program)

\- Bing is a Chinese term used to describe dough-based Chinese flatbreads, pancakes, unleavened dough foods, or indeed any food item with a flat disk ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bing_(Chinese_flatbread)

\- A slag heap (also called bing, Boney piles, culm, waste coal, Terekons (Russian), gob piles, or slate dumps) is a pile built of accumulated tailings, which are by-products of mining. ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bing_(mining)

\- Prison solitary confinement, a term used by inmates; A heap or pile, such as a slag heap en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bing

</comment><comment><USER17> Is this where Kumo ended up?

<comment><USER18> Yes, Kumo (and Kiev) are the internal codenames.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Most of the people I know will see the image on the main page and think it is some type of specialized search engine, and not come back.

<comment><USER20> That is if they even realize that they are supposed to perform a search.

I'm all for market competition and I realize that MS feels as though they HAVE to do this, but this seems a lot like MS's failed attempt at revamping their search a few years ago. And back then they had the advantage of having an operating system that people didn't despise. Without a good tie in (unfair advantage) with an OS and what appears to be an attempt to get people to shift the way they search I think this is doomed.

<comment><USER7> Honestly, man, most people don't care enough about their OS to despise it. My parents or wife or non-techie friends have ever said anything bad (or good) about Vista. It's just there.

I firmly believe it's a case of tech echo chamber at work.

I will add that when I gave instructions on disabling UAC it did result in "oh, that's good" type of comments. But I did that proactively. Never had them come to me seeking relief from it. Kinda like when a loud furnace shuts off in the winter and it's so much more pleasantly quiet, but you didn't even notice it when it was on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I read it last night thinking the name was a joke.

</comment><comment><USER22> It looks like they're trying to make a mix of Google and Wolfram-Alpha. Not a bad idea - let's see if they can make it work.

</comment><comment><USER23> Just another "I'm a PC campaign."

</comment><comment><USER24> All the flight stuff is farecast.

</comment><comment><USER25> I will never be able to 'Bing' and Decide.

There is only one Bing, Chandler Bing!

[ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_Bing> ]

<comment><USER26> Ned! Ryerson! Bing!</comment></comment>


Internet retailer (Amazon) connects with TextPayMe - <AUTHOR> http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2006/10/16/story1.html <comment><USER2> Congratulations. TextPayMe has been going a while without lots of press. This may be changing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Published on October 13, 2006. Why post it now? No new news?

<comment><USER4> It was new to me.</comment></comment>


David Bunnell, Creator of MacWorld and PC Magazine Dies - <AUTHOR> http://www.cultofmac.com/449998/r-p-david-bunnell-founder-macworld/ <comment><AUTHOR> I fondly remember PC Magazine, it was really core part of my education on PC's in the eighties.</comment>


Ask HN: Software for task management/scheduler - <AUTHOR> Hi,<p>I'm looking for a software for individual task management - like a to-do list with priorities, but that would schedule work time on a project based on the expected time to complete the task and priority. I know there's Microsof tProject and others, but I can't seem to find anything that isn't focused on large team projects. <comment><USER2> I could recommend Zenkit. It´s a SaaS for project management but because of its flexibility, it can be used for almost everything and with every size of a team.

Use the List or Kanban view to organize your tasks, set labels for prioritization and set up a custom field with estimated hours. The different columns in your Kanban Board can show the sum of all the hours in this column. You can also add start and end dates and view everything in the calendar.

There is so much more you can do just have a look at the features we offer or the templates. Maybe this task planner template would be a good start: [https://zenkit.com/templates/18](https://zenkit.com/templates/18)

</comment><comment><USER3> I have tested taskjuggler, but it fails to schedule tasks when a mixture of with/without deadline (end) tasks is provided.

The only software I am aware of that seems fitting is SkedPal [https://www.skedpal.com/](https://www.skedpal.com/)

I was so surprised that this isn't easier to find that I posted it on HN just now.

Unfortunately though (for me) there does not seem to be a (paid) self-hosted (privacy aware) version available.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you're not afraid of the command line, there's taskwarrior, which is pretty nice. You should definitely at least look at it.

If you're an emacs user, org-mode with agendas is nice too.

With org-mode you can "check in" and "check out" of tasks, so if you were keen assess how your estimated time to completion differed from actual time to complete, that'd be a place to start.

<comment><USER3> Neither taskwarrior nor org-mode seems to be capable of scheduling tasks based on duration and available time.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Open source API connection engines? - <AUTHOR> I was wondering if there are any open source engines that would allow us to build on in order to connect different APIs together. There are a lot of very expensive SaaS platforms out there that do this kind of thing but we would like to use something open source and add multiple sources and targets. We want to be able to connect Google Analytics API calls for example as a source with a middle layer that runs some transformations and then targets a marketing tool. Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> Bitscoop labs has a free product that has a decent free tier, or you could roll your own with mashape's open source tools

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I am looking at something similar with Segment to be honest. Bitscoop looks closer to what I am looking but definitely need something fully open source.</comment></comment>


Looking to learn OCaml? Here's some places to start - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rizo/awesome-ocaml

<comment><USER2> I've been toying with the idea of learning OCaml for a little while, so when I saw this, I thought "what better time than now?".

Then I went to the repo and saw basically the same thing I would get if I just googled it. This looks like a great place to reference things when getting started, but not the best to actually start.

The first thing I see is community, ok that seems fair, probably a good place to start. But then Algorithms and Data Structures, whoa there, maybe I should try some simple things first? What's next, application libraries? Probably helpful if I already knew how to use the language.

I understand that it's in alphabetical order, and maybe I "just don't get it" but this doesn't help me actually get started. I'm still looking at a bunch of material that I don't really understand and I'm not sure exactly where to start. However the repo itself doesn't actually present itself as a way to get started, so this might just be a long winded comment about the title.

<comment><USER3> (Author of the repo here).

This is just a draft. I wasn't expecting this to be published here in its initial state.

Actually my intention was just to create an exhaustive collection of references to useful resources for the OCaml programming language. The list is far from complete and needs more refinements both in terms of content, organization and design.

So all of your critics are fair (and actually useful). I'll continue to improve it, and I promise you'll be surprised the next time you visit the page! ;)

Btw, if you want to quickly understand how the ecosystem of the language works and actually start experimenting with it, here's an excellent guide for beginners:

\- <[http://blog.nullspace.io/beginners-guide-to-ocaml- beginners-...](http://blog.nullspace.io/beginners-guide-to-ocaml-beginners- guides.html>)

Hope it helps, and if you have any suggestions I'd be glad to know about them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is a much larger post you are missing. This encompasses a lot more awesome.

[https://github.com/bayandin/awesome- awesomeness](https://github.com/bayandin/awesome-awesomeness)</comment>


Swift Web Application Framework – Swift Express - <AUTHOR> http://swiftexpress.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey folks,

we have recently release Web Application Framework (Swift Express: [http://swiftexpress.io/](http://swiftexpress.io/) and [https://github.com/crossroadlabs/Express](https://github.com/crossroadlabs/Express)) written in Swift for OS X and Linux. It's simple, but still very powerful, inspired lot by Play Framework ([https://www.playframework.com/](https://www.playframework.com/)) and Express JS ([http://expressjs.com/](http://expressjs.com/)).

Very curious to have some feedback of yours! Any feedback is highly appreciated.

Thanks, Sofia Husak</comment>


NBC.com hacked, serving up Citadel malware - <AUTHOR> http://hitmanpro.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/nbc-com-hacked-serving-up-citadel-malware/

<comment><USER2> I think Google Chrome goes into the top-10 list of "software/systems/services which have improved real world Internet security the most" -- wide reach, moderate impact. Probably in the top 3.

(I still think ssh tops the list -- pretty narrowly focused, but SO MUCH BETTER than telnet, rlogin, etc., even kerberized telnet which didn't encrypt contents, only auth. And, like Chrome, it's not just most secure, it's _better_ than the alternatives in every other way, so it got wide adoption for non-security reasons too.)

I guess https falls in there too, but probably the move to "SSL all traffic by default, at least if the user opts-in" is the reason, not the "https just the final form for credit card processing."

SSL also IMO deserves a 9 or 10 place for START-TLS in mail protocols like SMTP and IMAP.

<comment><USER3> Doesn't firefox provides the same protection? I am not dismissing chrome I am just curious if the malware/phishing protection is the same. I thought they both used the same API.

<comment><USER2> Not sure about their malware/phishing blocking. (IIRC it wasn't on by default in firefox in the last version I used.)

Firefox has many security issues Chrome doesn't have (tab isolation by process is #1, but "devotes a lot more effort/resources to security" is generally true, too -- Chrome just has vastly more resources than Firefox, and spends them on a smaller number of platforms).

Chrome = HSTS. Cert pinning. Dealing with bad SSL cert failures correctly (i.e. not letting users simply click to accept...)

Also, Chrome led the way on auto-update of browsers, which is one of the biggest improvements in the real world. Chrome also got good security wins through their own PDF handler and Flash, vs. the Adobe stuff. I think Chrome also did "click to run" by default on more other plugins (Java) earlier, although I haven't payed as much attention to that (client-side java is basically an abomination now, generally.)

<comment><USER3> Firefox's malware/phishing system was added in 3.0,[1] which was released June 17, 2008[2].

[1] <https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/phishing-protection/>

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_release_history#Releas...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_release_history#Release_history)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Still infected after more than 2 hours of reporting to them.

Not only nbc .com, but also latenightwithjimmyfallon .com and other major NBC sites.

We posted some details here too:

[http://blog.sucuri.net/2013/02/nbc-website-hacked-be- careful...](http://blog.sucuri.net/2013/02/nbc-website-hacked-be-careful- surfing.html)

thanks,

</comment><comment><USER5> It's cool that we have Google capable of on-the-fly warning users when malware is detected on a popular website.

You can complain a lot about Google's business model, but that's a damn valuable service. Probably saved a lot of computers today.

<comment><USER6> > You can complain a lot about Google's business model

Why would we do that? Gmail and google is essentially free with of the addition tasteful ad designs.

<comment><USER7> Because their business model benefits from knowing everything it can about you.

<comment><USER8> But you willingly allow them to, and in return they give you value back.

<comment><USER9> That's the thing, I highly doubt the majority of users are even aware of how much information Google has on its users. Even I as a knowledgeable programmer would probably be surprised at the depth of profiling they have done. And this isn't even considering any sort of machine learning analysis of the data that to extrapolate information not explicitly given. So no, "willingly allow them" is not an accurate description of the relationship.

<comment><USER6> There's chrome plugins to opt out of ad-tracking and you can delete your search history.

Everything is optional. You don't have to be signed in or using cookies to search using Google.

That's how I like my information privacy. My only issue is the lack of encryption in gmail (and email in general).

Personal privacy is the users responsibility. There's a technology knowledge gap regardless if the user is using google or any other site. That isn't one websites responsibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> How do you "sinkhole" an IP address?

<comment><USER11> You create a route, in a router you control, that sends packets to that address into the bit bucket. Ideally its an edge router that everyone in an organization shares, or at an ISP which will protect anyone using that ISP.

<comment><USER10> Oh, so this only works for a subset of the internet? That makes more sense. Are there blacklists for IPs like there are for spam domains?

<comment><USER11> Various companies will sell you a list of currently known malware domains (like spammer lists) which you can feed into a router to create blocks for them. Is that what you are asking?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Writeup of the network monitoring service that discovered the infection: [http://blog.fox-it.com/2013/02/21/writeup-on-nbc-com- distrib...](http://blog.fox-it.com/2013/02/21/writeup-on-nbc-com-distributing- citadel-malware/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Chrome's malware warning stopped appearing in the last 5 minutes. Looks like it's fixed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just for nbc.com or for all infected properties like Jay Leno's site?

<comment><USER14> Depends if you consider Jay Leno to be a form of malware that NBC can't remove.

(sorry)

<comment><USER15> Well if you prefer Conan O'Brien as the host, it may seem that way

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> NBC shut down EveryBlock. I don't follow them anymore

</comment><comment><USER17> I better run my antivirus! Oh wait, I am on Mac...

</comment><comment><USER18> Nice ad.

<comment><USER18> I see now why I'm being downvoted. See, now there is substance to the article. 10 hours ago, it was 2 paragraphs on citadel malware and cnc servers and 3 more on their anti-malware app, with gratuitous screenshots of such. It /was/ an ad.</comment></comment>


Barnes and Noble Is Killing the Nook App Store - <AUTHOR> https://nookdeveloper.barnesandnoble.com/nook-apps-eol-faq <comment><USER2> It's kind of sad to see but it was rotting away. For those that don't know, their recent NOOK tablets (not the e-ink readers) are Samsung Galaxy Tabs with the Google Play Store pre-installed so there isn't much reason to maintain a separate app store.</comment>


Webslite Premium – Website to web slide – Chrome extension - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/webslite-premium/opjbnmehdmgnmdjeflamcpeeghkidneh <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone!

I developed "Webslite" a simple Chrome Extension that proposes read every website, that contains large amounts of media (like Facebook, 9gag, Pinterest and the usual ones), as a slider.

Technically is not a big deal, but I would be grateful to have some feedbacks or issues posted here or on Github. Would be a nice challenge to adapt or think about some different and fresh ideas.

Thank and sorry if it wasn't the best approach by commenting here. Keep up the good things on HN!</comment>


SQLite – D. Richard Hipp(author) presents origin, uses, and more[video] - <AUTHOR> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jib2AmRb_rk <comment><AUTHOR> I know HN doesn't typically like videos but the author of SQLite is a great presenter and such an awesome geek! Main content is about 45:00 minutes long

He does a great job reminding people that SQL is an amazing tool, and presents it in such a way that makes you sense SQLite is a shiny new toy to play with.

The author teaches a ton about SQLite, its use cases(likely the most used software library), interesting facts, and details about it's aviation grade test suite with millions of tests.

<comment><USER2> I love his presentation style too. Genuinely proud to see his baby in use on ISS. Money quote for me is: ""SQLite3 doesn't compete with DatabaseX. Sqlite3 competes with fopen()" ;)</comment></comment>


'Deep learning' technique enables robot mastery of skills via trial and error - <AUTHOR> http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2015/05/21/deep-learning-robot-masters-skills-via-trial-and-error/ <comment><USER2> Sometimes it's hard to separate signal from noise when you're not part of a field and just hearing about projects/papers, so I wanted to quickly pitch in to say that this is a legitimately ground-breaking approach and line of work that you can expect to hear much more about in the future. It's probably the most exciting robotics/manipulation project I'm currently aware of.

What's exciting here is that the entire system is trained end-to-end (including the vision component). In other words, it's heading towards agents/robots that consist entirely of a single neural net and that's it; There is no software stack at all - it's just a GPU running a neural net "code base", from perception to actuators. In this respect this work is similar to the Atari game-playing agent that has to learn to see while also learning to play the game. Except this setting is quite a lot more difficult in some respects; In particular, the actions in the Deepmind Atari paper are few and discrete, while here the robot is an actual physical system with a very large- dimensional and continuous action space (joint torques). Also, if you're new to the field you might think "why is the robot so slow?", while someone in the field is thinking "holy crap how can it be so fast?"

<comment><USER3> Neuroscience suggests that the brain has many fixed-purpose computational units, some neural nets and others not. While doing everything in a single network is indeed impressive, I am concerned about whether this is the most efficient approach.

EDIT: Downvoter, care to explain the reason for downvoting?

<comment><USER4> Why are you concerned? It's an approach. It seems to work pretty well. It's possible it could be improved, does that mean we should not display the results of this because it might not be the most efficient result?

I didn't downvote, but it's tiresome to hear "Yeah, that's all cool and everything, but I'm concerned that it might not be the absolute best." Nobody claimed it was the most efficient approach ever possible, only that it was cool, surprising, and reasonably ground breaking.

You can't really tell if it's the most efficient approach until you try it, and compare it with a model that you think might be a more efficient approach.

<comment><USER3> I said it was impressive and I meant it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Learning motor torques directly from vision is a very important result.

[https://youtu.be/EtMyH_--vnU](https://youtu.be/EtMyH_--vnU)

This talk by Sergey Levine, Pieter Abbeel's PostDoc outlines Berkley's end-to- end deep-training visuomotor control in detail.

Here is the paper :

End-to-End Training of Deep Visuomotor Policies, Sergey Levine _, Chelsea Finn_ , Trevor Darrell, Pieter Abbeel.

[http://arxiv.org/abs/1504.00702](http://arxiv.org/abs/1504.00702)

<comment><USER5> Also

Learning Contact-Rich Manipulation Skills with Guided Policy Search Levine, Wagener, Abbeel

[http://rll.berkeley.edu/icra2015gps/robotgps.pdf](http://rll.berkeley.edu/icra2015gps/robotgps.pdf)

[http://rll.berkeley.edu/icra2015gps/](http://rll.berkeley.edu/icra2015gps/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I probably made a career direction error in the early 1990s. I had been on DARPA'S neural network tools advisory panel and written the SAIC Ansim product, but moved on because of a stronger interest in natural language processing. Now, I think deep learning is getting very interesting for NLP.

This UCB project looks awesome!

BTW, I took Hinton's Coursera neural network class a few years ago, and it was excellent. Take it if that course is still online.

</comment><comment><USER7> Could someone explain in simple terms how is the target set to the robot so that it can learn to accomplish the task? For example, what inputs are provided in order for it to understand that it needs to put the cap on the bottle?

<comment><USER5> The robot learns to see it's arm and the target using a Imagenet trained CNN.

The robot is then shown the task a few times. A human controls the robot for a few minutes, performing the task.

Then an innovative policy search finds a robust policy so the robot can perform the task from any initial position and is robust to changes such as the addition of a shirt to the hanger task after training.

Potentially the robot can learn from videos of humans performing the task - i.e. by copying people.

<comment><USER8> This is some truly impressive work, I would expect the next step is to have the robot 'guess' what a new task is based on its similarity to previously completed tasks.

i.e. when given wood with a protruding nail + hammer, it relates the task to a previously trained Whac-A-Mole scenario and begins hammering the nail in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems most of the code behind this effort is open source as well! [http://lfd.readthedocs.org/en/latest/](http://lfd.readthedocs.org/en/latest/) [https://github.com/cbfinn/caffe](https://github.com/cbfinn/caffe)

</comment><comment><USER10> Wouldn't this benefit from simulation of the task (from the robot's perspective)? Doing something physical over and over again on ONE single robot must be very slow and inefficient compared to if it could be simulated. Even if the simulated training isn't spot on, the physical robot could start off with network weights from millions of attempts in a simulated environment.

<comment><USER11> I think that the efficiency of the specific task isn't actually the point here, but rather how the robot is progressing on learning the task on its own. In the future when this is put to practical application, I don't doubt that what you're saying would be employed to make a robot's learning curve more gentle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm impressed it (apparently) learned to align screw caps with a short backward turn at the start.

Then again, why do we make so many containers with these ungainly screw caps? Ever use those caps (popular in Japan) with the locking track that only take a quarter-turn to close? Examples

[http://www.amazon.com/Yu-Be-Moisturizing-Skin-Cream- Skin-1/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Yu-Be-Moisturizing-Skin-Cream- Skin-1/dp/B0001UWRCI/)

[http://www.amazon.com/Biotene-PBF-Toothpaste-Ounce- Pack/dp/B...](http://www.amazon.com/Biotene-PBF-Toothpaste-Ounce- Pack/dp/B00JX73B2A)

</comment><comment><USER13> While it is how humans learn, there's more to human learning than that. Babies are pre-wired to learn language, recognize shapes, determine "intent", etc.

This means that the neural nets used by babies are pre-wired to be good at specific tasks. Then, babies use those neural nets to do "deep learning" for the final part of the process.

Starting from _nothing_ and learning how to do a job is a big step. But having _something_ would be a better start position. What that something is, though, is hard to define.

<comment><USER14> >> _Babies are pre-wired to learn language, recognize shapes, determine "intent", etc._

I tend to disagree. In my perception (as father of two if it counts) is that babies are very poorly wired if at all.

They struggle with basic survival skills like breastfeeding. Some babies get it in the first couple of days, other take weeks of "training" with the help of adults. Awareness of needing sleep seems to be entirely absent (crying is not the best strategy for animals to sleep, huge bug).

Things like language, shapes and intent, are all developed later, and can go entirely undeveloped without stimulation and feedback, so I'd say they are already a product of learning and not pre-wiring.

The only thing I can think of that is most certainly pre-wired is crying. They nail that from day one.

Also don't forget that they are already sensory capable of a lot several weeks before being born, and voice recognition for one thing is something they learn around that time.

<comment><USER13> > babies are very poorly wired if at all.

As a father myself, I don't agree. I find it impossible to believe that babies are wired _poorly_ , or randomly, or just are amorphous blobs of learning. They're active and inter-active from a very early age. Even before they're born.

Their brain is still growing connections, and re-wiring itself based on sensory input / feedback. i.e. blind people co-opt the vision centers to process sound.

But there _is_ a vision center. There are portions of the brain which are pre- wired to be good at certain activities.

If nothing else, look at the inputs. The nerves from the retina and ears go _somewhere_. They don't just disappear into random parts of the brain. They're pre-wired to certain areas. Those areas are in turn pre-wired to be good at accepting certain inputs.

In contrast, many animals have much more hard-wired behavior. And insects are little automatons. Are we really going to say that animals are pre-wired with... nothing? And that they learn all of their behavior after they're born?

I find that even harder to believe than the idea that the brain is pre-wired to be good at some things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you're interested in this, I'm putting together a meetup/workshop/lab at the Palace of Fine Arts in SF every weekend. Come out and share, learn, and build with other people interested in this field.

Think of it as the Home Brew Computer Club for Robotics/AI :)

[https://www.facebook.com/groups/762335743881364/](https://www.facebook.com/groups/762335743881364/)

</comment><comment><USER16> It acts very organic. But I have to wonder if the organic motion is a good thing. Wouldn't it be more efficient to control the arm using IK, but let the robot "think" where the arm should be ? I mean I could easily imagine a straight line, but I can't draw it.

This would also speed it up imo. Since some things can easily be solved using regular algorithms. Our brains also come with some pre wired functions.

<comment><USER17> Yes. In the video, I was struck by how clumsy the robot was. Not clumsy in the typical fashion of robots, but of young children.

Interesting research.

<comment><USER18> Susan Calvin approves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> there was recently a Talking Machines episode that included some information (not apparent in the title) about difficulties of modeling the world with robots).

"We learn about the Markov decision process (and what happens when you use it in the real world and it becomes a partially observable Markov decision process) "

[http://www.thetalkingmachines.com/blog/2015/5/21/how-we- thin...](http://www.thetalkingmachines.com/blog/2015/5/21/how-we-think-about- privacy-and-finding-features-in-black-boxes)

</comment><comment><USER20> oh man, that bottle and shoe examples! :o</comment>


Electronic Arts sues Zynga, says it copied 'The Sims Social' - <AUTHOR> http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/software/electronic-arts-sues-zynga-says-it-copied-the-sims-social/articleshow/15344469.cms

<comment><USER2> Mo money mo problems</comment>


U.S. Bicycle Industry: Statistics and Facts - <AUTHOR> https://www.statista.com/topics/1448/bicycle-industry-in-the-us/?utm_content=65467477&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter <comment><USER2> I know that such stats not straightforward to obtain, but I'd be interested in seeing numbers on the "death rate" of durable goods like bicycles and guitars in addition to the "birth rate". I just have no idea if the population of such things (per capita) is stable, or growing, or shrinking.

</comment><comment><USER3> We sure seem to buy a lot of bikes, but it doesn't seem like a proportionate number of people are riding them.

I suppose bikes fit in this interesting niche of being a leisure item/exercise item, but because there's potential for everyday/practical usage people are more willing to buy than other leisure items? I'm not sure.

<comment><USER4> I grew up in a tourist area where >50% of houses were summer rental income properties. A significant chunk were furnishes with a set of cheap bikes and bike locks for the renters to use. So some significant percent of half of all houses there had 2-6 Walmart bikes.

The guy that has a massive collection of 1930s Scandanavian hunting rifles (or whatever other niche) skews the "average" gun owner stats. I would bet that similar outliers are at play for bikes since it's a similar case of some people use them as tools, a lot of people own a few, some people own a ton

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can happily say that my mountain bike was made in America AND was also cheaper than the competitors. Although Turner now makes its bikes in Taiwan since they only do carbon. Guerrilla Gravity is another US manufacturer with decent prices. Anyone know any others?

<comment><USER6> It's rather sad that not only have the $200 dollar bikes been outsourced, i.e. moved manufacturing overseas, but also the high end frames and components have mostly gone overseas.

Taiwan is a great place, but i wish we kept some of the high end mfg stateside.

<comment><USER7> Especially when one considers the markup on high end frames and components. They must be making a killing on the cost savings by doing it overseas. My friend who works at one of the companies that makes high end bikes said the type of stuff that'd cost thousands of dollars (even on the secondary market) was priced at a extreme fraction of the cost during a sale where employees could buy components and bikes. People who didn't even need some of the items (especially wheelsets) bought them because of how ridiculous the prices were relative to buying them at normal price.

Like, absolutely staggering amount of savings where you could make a tidy profit off of it on the used market. Even companies I know that went out of business didn't give nearly as much discounts on some of the items I saw they were selling (e.g. monitors). I'm still a little saddened that he forgot to ask me if I wanted anything!

<comment><USER8> Ride for a team (the amateur kind that anyone can sign up for), and even the lower category riders get deals well below street price. Try flipping it on eBay and that benefit will disappear quickly, but it does give an idea of the markup. Because I'm pretty sure Trek et. al. are going to ensure that they still make money on Cat 3 riders.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Whoops: "About 47.6 billion e-bikes are projected to be sold globally in 2018."

<comment><USER10> I am buying 40

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've never heard of statista. I'm interested in hearing experiences and opinions from anyone that uses it! Why is it useful for you? How does it compare to other sources for you?

<comment><USER12> I actually work at Statista now. If you have any questions I am happy to assist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Read the report for only $325!

<comment><USER10> My bike was cheaper

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It seems like 80% of the data is locked behind a paywall. What is left is interesting, but insufficient to make any conclusions.</comment>


Next Gen Code Editor prototype - <AUTHOR>

About a year ago, I saw a screencast for a next gen code editor.  Instead of entering code into a text file, you visually manipulated the states of the variables in the IDE. And as the program executed, the visual showed how the states of the variables would change.
I've been searching for that demo and can't find it. The list of keywords returns too many results and it's not in the top 100.
Does any one remember anything like this? I think it was someone's phd thesis. <comment><USER2> I have used and been involved with a number of incarnations of what we can call loosely, the "decision table" or "rules" metaphor.

This way of working has a lot of appeal, and it is extremely powerful. The main thing I find good about it is that the tables can usually be given over to subject-matter experts to maintain, which means systems programmers like me don't have to mess with any of that dreadful application stuff. Nice.

However, what the mind of man can conceive, the hand of man can screw up. I have seen big projects go down at the bow with all hands lost in industries where the decision to use decision tables could not have been more right - like the insurance industry. It should have been a no-brainer. But the classical problems of poor project management, poor design, overwhelming complexity, poor team leadership, lack of technical skills in the team etc. still conspired against us.

Look, my take on all of the projects I've seen where this is involved...? There is still no substitute for a single, over-arching, godlike human intelligence that can encompass all of this complexity and think _beyond_ the patterns. Somebody who knows what they are doing must be in charge and must be allowed to lead. Decision tables are great, but they are just another tool in the arsenal of the professional software developer.

In the right hands, such a tool will make a good outcome great. But in the wrong hands, the added weight of yet another piece of poorly understood technology may be just enough to send the project to the bottom. If you are working with people who are over-awed with technology, who can't think even three consequences ahead, and who can't do much more than cut and paste code they scrounge off the web, you're already dead, and Decision Tables, or IDE's for that matter can't save you.

At the end of the day, software is an extension of mind. It can never be better than the mind that created it, though it can be far far worse. So if you want good software, hire the finest minds you can find, let them select their own tools, and allow them to do the job you pay them to do.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://subtextual.org>

<comment><USER4> I've studied the ideas around Subtext for a while. It's worth reiterating(if the videos and papers don't make it clear enough) that Subtext is really focused on exploiting the benefits of decision tables by expanding upon them and adding the complete set of constructs in addition to logic.

Decision tables, by the way, _work_. If you haven't tried them, it will only take a brief perusal of Wikipedia to get the concept. Their benefit is that all logic is represented in a single table: if every entry in the table has been filled, all cases are covered. Much easier to read than linear code, much less prone to error.

You can write your own decision table by hand in a spreadsheet program. But above a certain level of complexity(the point where you really, really want correct logic the first time) a complete decision table becomes very time- consuming to write by hand. By design it will still give more correct results than just hacking away, but automated approaches become very appealing. Decision tables were researched for a while in the 60s and early 70s, but were abandoned presumably as the field moved on to more prestigious topics.

Subtext's so-called "schematic table" does much to add the necessary automation - the next step in making it production-worthy would be to port such a system to output code in existing languages.

<comment><USER5> An unhandled case is only one kind of bug. Needless to say, filling in all those entries in your spreadsheet says absolutely nothing about whether those decisions are _correct_.

Look, this is a gimmick. Not having used such a tool, I'm not going to say that it's worthless. But I will say that I'm very suspicious of anyone who looks to gimmicks as the Salvation of Modern Programming. I've seen it too many times.

<comment><USER6> Not having used such a tool, I'm not going to say that it's worth using. But my reddit-crippled attention span managed to sit through the 38-minute demo and actually find it interesting because it seems to match the way I THINK about a program. Programming, for me, is about translating a mental concept into a specific programming language - this looks a lot closer to directly capturing (drawing, really) my mental concept. I pretty much taught myself to program, but this is actually similar to how programming was taught to us in certain classes - using flowcharts and logic tables. It's supposed to be about the logic, not about the language. He drives that point home towards the end of the demo, where he shows three completely different representations of a program - nested if statements, switch statements, and classes with polymorphism - collapsing into the same representation.

That being said, I've always been wary of "visual" tools that promise the sky and the moon, and I think I would go nuts if I had to use the mouse like in the demo, but it definitely looks interesting.

<comment><USER7> Which do humans use more for communication and reasoning - words or visuals? Considering that we have developed elaborate languages but done relatively little in the way of visual non-word communication, I would deduce that words and symbols are generally a superior medium. The graphs just seemed a bit cluttered towards the end I think. Interesting though.

I do still have a fondness of flow-based programming, as is used in Kamaelia, twisted flow, or graphical VHDL environments though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I worked on an IDE that only allow refactoring - the demos at least were nice, even if ultimately it didn't go anywhere!

<http://dynamicaspects.org/domain-j/demo.asp></comment>


Suspected Campaign from Russia on Reddit - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/redditsecurity/comments/e74nml/suspected_campaign_from_russia_on_reddit/ <comment><USER2> context: [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/fears-russian- interferenc...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/fears-russian-interference- hit-u-k-election-reddit-bans-accounts-n1097731)

interview: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-50701904/jeremy-corbyn- defe...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-50701904/jeremy-corbyn-defends- sharing-leaked-us-uk-trade-documents)

</comment><comment><USER3> It will be interesting to see the moral gymnastics involved here, seeing as Trump and Corbyn are perceived as being on opposite ends of the political spectrum, and President Trump basically did similar things (take advantage of leaks from Russian agents). I imagine many of the same people that excoriate Trump for this will find a way for Jeremy Corbyn to be innocent, and those that condemn Corbyn will have justified Trump.

The Russians meanwhile, probably just want everyone divided and easy to manipulate. Which has been working pretty well I guess.

<comment><USER4> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> These documents were posted to Reddit a week before the UK election was called, and by all accounts are legit, but that won't stop anyone from calling it a "Russian disinformation campaign to swing the UK's elections."</comment>


Spanish Accelerators. You're doing it wrong. - <AUTHOR> http://fabiandesimone.com/spanish-accelerators-you-are-doing-it-wrong/

<comment><USER2> For me, (being an Spaniard) the biggest problem in Spain regarding to entepreneurship, is taxes and the insane burocracy (and by insane I mean a crap pile of BIG nonsense burocracy).

If you open a company right now, you will have to pay at least 180€ each month, regardless of your incomes.

Even if you dont make a penny from incomes, you will have to pay that.</comment>


'Flight shame' could halve growth in air traffic - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49890057 <comment><USER2> Where's the outcry about private jet travel?

<comment><USER3> Here are three:

[https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and- advice/private...](https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and- advice/private-jets-environment-carbon-footprint-climate-change-harry-meghan- markle-a9071391.html)

> Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have come under fire for taking four trips by > private jet in 11 days – with celebrities quick to step forward and defend > the royal couple – while teenage activist Greta Thunberg's decision to reach > America via yacht to reduce her carbon footprint has drawn praise and > censure from those on both sides of the debate.

([https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science- environment-49349566](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49349566) also mentions it, with "the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have faced criticism over opting to fly to Sir Elton John's villa in Nice in a private jet.")

[http://news.trust.org/item/20190927191343-z5e0w](http://news.trust.org/item/20190927191343-z5e0w)

> Celebrities such as Britain's Prince Harry and U.S. actor Leonardo DiCaprio, > who preach environmentalism while also taking private jet flights, have also > been accused of hypocrisy.

[https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-s- private-p...](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-s-private- plane-addiction-disgrace-climate-change-hypocrisy-1240212)

> The producer (and reformed jet junkie) has a message for stars and > executives who publicly fight global warming while quietly indulging in the > worst form of environmental abuse.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Arya, create and share "how-to" directions for websites - <AUTHOR> https://www.aryanav.com <comment><USER2> I feel some detailed documentation on how to integrate, and how it works could be useful, including any vulnerabilities to XSS.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We do have some instructions on how to integrate once you've generated your embed code on sign up however I agree this should also be available without sign up. Privacy/security have been questions we get from almost everyone so we're actively working on better documentation around this. I'll make sure to include info about XSS.</comment></comment>


Epistemology - <AUTHOR> http://blog.oscardelben.com/content/2009/02/epistemology.html

<comment><USER2> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_(Ayn_Rand)#Epistemo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objectivism_\(Ayn_Rand\)#Epistemology:_Reason)

Objectivist epistemology is the only epistemology that is worth a shit to me, i.e., in that any attempt to refute it necessarily ends up pre-supposing one of its precepts, ergo, it cannot be refuted, ergo, it is the only epistemology to bother with.

<comment><USER3> Please do explain how objectivism resolves both error, and regress skepticism.

<comment><USER2> Regarding error, from the wikipedia link:

"She held that objective identification of the values of attributes of existents is obtained by measurement, broadly defined as procedures whose perceptual component, the comparison of the attribute's value to a standard, is so simple that an error in the resulting identification is not possible given a focused mind."

Regarding skepticism:

Hyper-bolic skepticism is self-defeating in that if you go around saying nothing can be established then neither you (your own existence) or the statements you are making can be established either. It is right up there with solipsism, i.e., it deserves no serious consideration. Nobody acts on a basis of solipsism or hyperbolic skepticism.

<comment><USER3> Thank you Allocator2008,

Maybe I was ambiguous. I was referring to 'error skepticism', and 'regress skepticism' rather error and skepticism as distinct entities. But your latter explanation answers my query; I am, however, unimpressed with that response.

To summarise: (1) skepticism is self defeatist, and (2) skepticism offers no ethical foundation. I'll refute each in turn.

(1):

Skepticism is not a proposal, i.e., "Knowledge doesn't exist." for that would be contradictory. Skepticism can be seen, within the Western tradition, as the philosopher's conscience. It asks: "If we prescribe to 'X' can we prescribe to 'Y'". Skeptics posit hypotheticals, not absolutes.

Consider the hard skeptic, he holds nothing - not even that nothing can be known. It's a dark room, but that metaphor can only get us so far because the skeptic can't even know that the room's dark. Skeptic's arguments go thusly, "I cannot run arguments in my metaphysic; however, I see you have a different metaphysical system and I see that within yours argument 'X' would be possible meaning the system collapses in on itself".

In that way skepticism is not contradictory, if you'd like to hear the skeptic's arguments (that run in _your_ metaphysic) ask me to elaborate.

(2):

There's no logical bridge between what-is and what-ought; your metaphysic does not change your ethic; for example,

(1) Humans are egoists. (C) We ought to make egoist choices.

That doesn't follow; we'd need another proposition, namely: (2) The right thing to do is be true to ourselves. So now we have two distinct propositions (1), which is metaphysical, and (2), which is ethical. We see that any ethical conclusion must admit an ethical proposition. But now we have to support prop. (2), which can only be done using another ethical prop., a la, infinity.

Conclusion: there is no bridge between is and ought. (G.E.Moore)

All that is to say, nobody can act on the basis of a metaphysic.

<comment><USER2> Thanks Ekpyrotic. Good food for thought.

Regarding 1), I would be certainly interested in what X can be shown to be true within Objectivism such that its establishment would undermine the system or cause a contradiction. As it is based on the Law of Identity I think one would be hard pressed to find an X that poses a problem, but hey, I'm all ears! :-)

Regarding the bridge between what-is --> what-ought. Certainly a hard problem prima facia. I'm not a trained philosopher, but I would say that, starting with "(A) != (!A)", one can say A "ought" to do action x if x preserves or enhances A's identity, that is to say, A's existence. So a black hole "ought" to accrete matter, because that is what black holes do, and accreting matter preserves and enhances the black hole's identity as a black hole, that is to say, it's existence, since, for Rand, identity is tantamount to existence. So man "ought" to be selfish because man IS by identity a selfish being. Acting selfishly preserves an individual's identity as a selfish being, i.e., preserves that individual's very existence. To "live for others" is to lose one's identity, and by declension, one's existence. "What-ought" it seems to me can have no meaning apart from the preservation of its subject or its actor. I "ought" to do that which preserves my genes, just like a black hole "ought" to accrue matter. There is no "ought" it seems to me divorced from preservation of existence, or preservation of identity. Thus:

1) Man is by identity selfish. 2) Man does not exist without his identity. 3) Man does not exist outside being selfish. 4) There is not "what-ought" beyond "what is needed to preserve existence of the actor, for all other meanings are subjective. 5) Man ought to preserve his existence. 6) By 2) existence is identity, so man "ought" to be selfish.

Admittedly a tough one, but that is my "stab" at it for the moment, ha!

Again, I would be interested in what X could be proved true within Objectivism such that Objectivism becomes inconsistent. :-)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: UI dark patterns related to privacy - <AUTHOR> I'm looking to accumulate a list of dark patterns that are misleading and lead users to mismanage their own privacy or leads to unintended outcomes. The goal is to create a template that can be published to help users be aware of these patterns.Would love to get examples from the community here. <comment><USER2> [https://webtransparency.cs.princeton.edu/dark- patterns/](https://webtransparency.cs.princeton.edu/dark-patterns/)

[https://petsymposium.org/2016/files/papers/Tales_from_the_Da...](https://petsymposium.org/2016/files/papers/Tales_from_the_Dark_Side__Privacy_Dark_Strategies_and_Privacy_Dark_Patterns.pdf)</comment>


New skimmers fit right on top of chip and PIN credit card scanners - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/02/new-skimmers-fit-right-on-top-of-chip-and-pin-credit-card-scanners/ <comment><USER2> Direct link to Krebs' article which this one is recycling:

[https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/02/more-on-bluetooth- ingeni...](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/02/more-on-bluetooth-ingenico- overlay-skimmers/)

</comment><comment><USER3> So the news here is that someone has made yet another overlay for a card reader?

The chip isn't vulnerable here. It's still the old method that's being attacked, so it's not really surprising that people continue to target it.</comment>


Ask HN: Contingency Plans for COVID19? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN Community,
Do you guys have any particular plans to deal with the COVID19 virus?
Outside of remote work and succession contingencies, are you putting any special policies or plans in place? <comment><USER2> [https://www.who.int/docs/default- source/coronaviruse/getting...](https://www.who.int/docs/default- source/coronaviruse/getting-workplace-ready-for-covid-19.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> I bought a lot of canned and long lived foods (ones I'd buy anyways), toilet paper, tissues and medicines. Can't get hand sanitiser in any supermarkets since last Friday.

</comment><comment><USER4> Bought lots of frozen food and water (I should figure out how to do sugar water).

</comment><comment><USER5> None</comment>


Mars Rover Curiosity Finds Martian 'Flower' and Snake-Like Rock   - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2013/01/05/curiosity-martian-flower/

<comment><USER2> >NASA posted a raw, unprocessed version of the photo online on the Curiosity rover's mission website

Totally off-topic, but how many more years will it take before online news articles start consistently using that newfangled hyperlink technology?

<comment><USER3> What is worse is when they provide a seemingly useful link, but all that link does is take you to some absurdly ad-laden page that displays "search results" of their site that just says "No results found".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The original article also includes the picture of the snake-like rock: [http://www.space.com/19143-mars-flower-curiosity-rover- photo...](http://www.space.com/19143-mars-flower-curiosity-rover-photos.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> Looks a lot like quartz.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, agreed. Or some other kind of crystallized rock. Very abundant in sands...and Mars is sandy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder when we'll be able to explore the caverns on Mars.

</comment><comment><USER8> Just shoot the laser at it!

</comment><comment><USER9> Reminants of the illudium Q-36 explosive space modulator.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's probably an alien.</comment>


Ask HN: Should I be learning Scala in 2019? - <AUTHOR> So, I'm mostly a .NET and Node.js guy (with front-end experience as well). I wanted to branch into the Java ecosystem but having prior experience in Java, I was not a fan of the syntax.
I have heard a lot about Scala and I decided to jump into that (without enough research). I got a Scala book and I'm about a 100 pages in and I must say I do like the language, its seems very interesting and productive to me thus far. However I decided to google about language usage, future and jobs.
The results weren't very motivating and now I'm doubting whether I should keep going? Are companies choosing Scala nowadays for new projects? (not talking about legacy systems) <comment><USER3> This link compares search volume for Scala, Rust, and Kotlin for past 12 months in U.S.

[https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F091...](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=%2Fm%2F091hdj,%2Fm%2F0dsbpg6,%2Fm%2F0_lcrx4)

(Scala wins by a large margin!)

Awhile ago I chose Scala for a multi-year side project. I love writing Scala. I think the Scala community is quietly productive and mostly talks to themselves.

I'm not a Scala expert by any means, but I have have been programming for awhile and appreciate the power and terseness that comes out of my Scala code. It feels like I have more time to design well because I needn't write so much code :P.

Going to attempt a good/bad/ugly for Scala...

Good: \- Scala ecosystem very much under active development. Scala 3.0, compilation speed improvements, popular libraries updated regularly, IDE integration (VSC is recommended right now I think) \- Powerful. Scala's type system is relatively advanced. If used properly I think this can reduce bugs and cost of maintenance and new features. \- Fast and portable. jvm!

Bad: \- Scala's relatively slow compilation reduces cycle time, but I find often this is mitigated by confidence in the code I'm writing, so I don't often need to stop and run it to ensure correctness. \- Very high learning curve to wield the power effectively. Scala is an ecosystem that demands commitment. For example, sometimes I feel like I'm missing the requisite PhD to get the sbt build tool working properly.

Ugly: \- Due to Scala's power and high learning curve, a few failure modes may occur that make Scala impractical for many real-world software teams: Scala/functional experts can write a "Russian doll" of abstractions that's hard for someone less experienced to decipher, code review, or maintain; new team members who are also new to Scala/functional may have to ramp up with both business/codebase and functional concepts; and Scala gives you so many different "ways" to solve the same problem that code styles may diverge even in a small team, increasing cost and risk.

Overall I really love Scala, am looking forward to Scala 3.0, and intend to use it for many years, especially for projects with small, experienced teams where Scala's power and learning curve is an asset and not a liability.

<comment><USER4> One the things I really don't like about Scala is yet-another-obscure-build system.

I'm forced to use sbt and I don't like it. And from my reading of my Scala book, the scala compiler is running in some kind of daemon or server instead of a stand-alone compile?

I hate it when so much stuff happens in the background and you can't figure out what it is.

<comment><USER5> _I'm forced to use abt and I don't like it._

You don't have to use SBT. Maven works fine with Scala and is quite mainstream.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I lead a team who rewrote their stack from C#/C++/Win to Java/C++/Node.

Big wins were being able to leverage the much larger ecosystem, and containerization.

We played with Scala but it didn't work for our team, the expressivity is a two edged sword. Runtime is absolutely fine though it was all about complexity, and poor developer tooling. And since we are in a smaller market, not SV, sticking to platforms where we can find hires was probably a better call for our company.

<comment><USER7> What big win did you get from moving from C# to Java that you wouldn't get just from moving to .Net Core?

<comment><USER8> Cheap coders?

<comment><USER7> It seems like it. If there only goal was to move from Windows, they spent a lot of money rewriting their whole stack instead of just migrating to .Net Core.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My answer is Yes. There is still a lot of momentum behind Scala. It's pure functional structures are way more mature than Java's. The most common complaints against Scala are build tools and compiler. A great team is working on it as we speak.

Scala also forces you to think differently.

</comment><comment><USER10> > I wanted to branch into the Java ecosystem but having prior experience in > Java, I was not a fan of the syntax.

Independent of the question around Scala: If you want to get into the JVM ecosystem, you should also be able to understand and write Java. Some dependencies will not be available natively in a secondary language like Scala. And it will also give a better understanding about the limitations of the underlying platform.

<comment><USER11> This. Almost all libraries and their example/documentations will be written in Java, so you have to learn Java if you want to use other language in the JVM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Even if you end up not using it for anything in production, it is always worthwhile to learn new programming languages, how they approach solving problems and structuring programs.

It opens our mind to new ways to architecture our software.

<comment><USER7> Assuming that you don't have other obligations like family, hobbies, etc.

I specifically optimize the limited amount of free time I have to devote to career self improvement to what is going to help me be more competitive in the job market.

<comment><USER12> Having the skills of being able to bring new ideas into existing software stacks, without forcing the business to lose money with yet another rewrite of the month, is exactly one way of being more competitive in the job market.

<comment><USER7> For example, if I wanted to bring the ideas of functional programming to a C# shop, why not just learn the concepts of functional programming _in C#_?

On top of that, if there is a standard way to structure a program in a given language, you're not doing future developers and maintainers any favors by not following the paradigms of that language or "you can write COBOL in any language".

When I'm writing on Python, I try to do things in the "Pythonic" way. The same with JS or C#.

<comment><USER12> Lets take Python as example.

async/await only came to it after the success it had on .NET.

So one could have toyed with async/await in C#, and now already understand some best practices to apply in Python.

Or read the Osaki's book on persistent data structures and implement similar ones in a Python library for concurrent code in Python.

Or maybe one has spent a couple of days learning about OCaml and Haskell, and is in a better position to understand how to make better use of list and generator comprehensions or itertools package.

Of course one also has the choice of only eating what is on the plate, without understanding the variations that the same ingredients allow for.

<comment><USER7> The question is, who has the time?

I already have a two to three year agenda to improve up the stack ($cool_kids_front_end framework of the week), down the stack (AWS cloud infrastructure from a developer, infrastructure, devops viewpoint), more breadth at certain levels (get better at Python, big data, ElasticSearch and Kibana) and staying fluent when it comes to architecture (scalability, high availability, security, etc). Why would I take the time that doesn't help in that goal?

I don't need to be an expert in all of those areas, but I at least need to be good at some, average at some, and be conversant in other areas to at least know the _what_ if I don't know the _how_ to be able to command higher than market salaries as either "adult supervision" at smaller companies or an overpriced consultant - and I am not talking about Silicon Valley/West coast salaries.

<comment><USER12> Anyone that has an employer that allows setting learning goals as part of the evaluation process.

<comment><USER7> I agree and my company does the only two things in support of my learning goals that I could expect. They will let me work on a project using technology that they know I'm not the most experienced with to give me the chance to learn it instead of siloing me on just my area expertise and they reimburse me for AWS certifications. Both of which at the end of the day help them out.

I wouldn't expect them to let me spend time on the clock to learn Haskell or Rust when we are a C#/JavaScript/Python shop or to learn the ins and outs of Azure since we are an AWS shop.

<comment><USER12> Faire enough, on my case I am free to spend the time on any technology, provided it is agreed upon and I happen to do an session to the team afterwards.

So lets not generalize if it is a waste of time to the OP to learn Scala.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What's your end result? If you are focused on career based learning, there are a lot more jobs out there for pure Java development and Kotlin is picking up serious steam especially when it comes to Android development.

Besides if you already a .Net developer, you're probably already using JetBrains R#. They are behind Kotlin and the best IDE for it.

I'm also not a Java fan for a lot of reasons but the syntax of Java is not that far from C# that I could see liking one and hating the other.

</comment><comment><USER13> If you only care about marketability on the backend side, then scala is certainly a fair choice. The difficulty with scala is the complexity of the language itself.

If you want to improve your own thought process rather than your skill in just one programming language, then clojure(script) would be a better choice. Once you've been through the learning and practice curve, the benefits of having decomplected your mind will spill to other languages.

</comment><comment><USER14> Here in the UK and London demand for Scala is very close to the demand for Ruby. If you search Indeed.co.uk by title there are around 162 jobs each for Scala and Ruby in the UK, with 65 for Go. Scala's other rival is non-Android Kotlin which has only recently edged into double figures.

</comment><comment><USER15> If you want to branch into Java, learn Java.

More importantly, why do you want to branch into Java specifically? Is there a company/job you have your eye on? Or do you want to get into web dev backend?

Because there are so many, many languages/technologies out there, asking "should I learn X?", the answer is always "if you like it or it'll get you a job you want, yes"

</comment><comment><USER16> I think it is worth it to learn the functional aspects. Depending on other things you would want to explore there are some great libraries - <USER2> reactive systems with Akka or data analysis/pipelines with Spark. I would suggest looking at a few books to get going with Scala as online resources aren't great.

\- Functional Programming in Scala

\- Akka In Action

</comment><comment><USER17> Scala is good, but I haven't seen it being used as much as it was popular a few years ago. It may die with a handful of loyal users, sadly; I bought the new Scala book myself and it's gathering dust.

You may want to check out F# if you're looking for a .Net functional language. Or try out Haskell.

</comment><comment><USER18> As everything: that depends. In general it's a good mindset change after .NET (well, unless you're doing F#) so it both grows your ways of thinking and your repertoire. If you have limited time to learn and you're doing it for a new job, the equation might be different.

</comment><comment><USER19> You should be learning how to answer these questions yourself. Part of growing up as a programmer is being able to answer. What language should I learn, what framework/library should I learn, what project should I work on. Everyone is different, with different background and goals. You must learn to figure out where you are and where you're going and then answer the question for yourself. There has never been a better time to learn Scala for at least one programmer out there and at the same time, it could be the worst mistake another could make right now.

<comment><USER20> In my opinion, your criticism is unwarranted here. Asking about the job market for a language on HN is completely valid and doesn't signal an inability for OP to answer the question on their own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If the goal is access to a wider job market then learn regular Java. It's the most popular JVM lang now and likely to remain so for decades.

</comment><comment><USER22> Try Kotlin

</comment><comment><USER23> which book did you get?

</comment><comment><USER24> I love scala, it's probably my favorite language. It's one of the most flexible and powerful languages I've ever come across. The downside of this is that it very complicated, I wouldn't consider myself anywhere close to an expert even after developing with it professionally over 5 years.

In regards to new projects, I do believe people are using it for new stuff. Both Spark and Akka are very powerful libraries that have little parallel in other languages.

Imo, Scala is the most advanced language on the jvm, far outclassing Kotlin, Clojure, and Java in terms of expressiveness.

I would recommend learning it and playing around with Spark. I think the combination is very employable.

Also, Scala is so much fun! I love it!

<comment><USER25> > _Imo, Scala is the most advanced language on the jvm, far outclassing > Kotlin, Clojure, and Java in terms of expressiveness._

Exactly why I don't want any new scala code on my team. We don't need engineers spending three days arguing about pedantic differences in the language because something can be done 8 different ways. And who wants to maintain something in scala that they didn't write? It's a nightmare.

<comment><USER24> I mean, as long as everyone agrees to use purely functional constructs and heavy use of monadic intetfaces, I haven't found it a problem. Without mutability and with referential transparency for all structures, I think it's fine.

The problem is when you have a Java guy on the team who writes crap OO code. That's when it becomes impossible to reason about. We had a rule on my last scala dev team that if you wanted to use a var or a structure from collection.mutable, you had to give a presentation on why it was necessary.

<comment><USER26> That sounds a bit reductionist, as if 'heavy use of monadic interfaces' would be kind of a silver bullet. There's a lot of concepts to internalize before being able to build large scale systems using categorical abstractions: Monads, monad transformers, free monads, applicatives, arrows, ...

When to choose what? Probably leave the choice to library-implementors mostly. Still, should the bar to implement a library be set so high? The middle ground seems to be what e.g. Rust is doing. No explicit categorical types, use functions where functions make sense, i.e. for most stuff that isn't I/O.

<comment><USER24> Certainly monads, semigroups, etc etc aren't the silver bullet a lot of people think they are. But it is amazing how many forms of computation can be formalized into these structures. Of course, just because you can doesn't mean you should. A lot of times it just makes things more complicated for no benefit (a lot of IO monads fall into this category I think).

But there is a big benefit to using these category structure: you don't have to think as hard about the underlying implementation because you know it must obey certain laws. Also category theory interfaces tend to be pretty simple and easy to learn: most of are defined by a couple functions and a couple laws.

Everyone knows how to map or flatMap, and that's really all you need in a lot of code!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Setting up comprehensive centralized logging with AWS Services for Kubernetes - <AUTHOR> https://collectord.io/blog/2019-03-13-aws-centralized-logging-for-kubernetes/ <comment><USER2> Thank you for posting! One of the authors here. Let me know if you have any questions!</comment>


Videos from Startup School Europe 2014 - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ-uHSnFig5P7scrcPr3VPHrG1OylKhpt

<comment><USER2> That would be cool to add the talks topic in the videos' title and/or description. I care more about the subject than the speaker's name when deciding which video might be interesting to watch.

<comment><USER3> I came here to say this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Url changed from [http://blog.ycombinator.com/videos-from-startup-school- europ...](http://blog.ycombinator.com/videos-from-startup-school-europe-are- now-online), which points to this.</comment>


Ask HN: Am I fit for the startup world? - <AUTHOR> I'm 34 years old ex-programmer who turned IT/sysadmin for 4 years (long story filled with regrets) and grew tired of it quick enough. I want to dive back into programming and I decided to consider working for a start-up.
My previous programming job was in what you might call corporate environment, my only degree is an Associate's degree in programming.
Is my age or lack of degree going to be an obstacle now or in the next 3 years in the start-up world? I suppose once I'm closer to 40 I can become senior but then again most senior developers are younger than me, start-ups or corporate. Also, I would have experience in start-up technologies - probably a nightmare to market through the average corporate HR (assuming that I'll be unworthy to work for start-ups after 38-40).
Give it to me as honest as possible. I would like to make an educated decision about my career and I would hate to spent months and years of rigorous studying just to be dismissed for things beyond my control. <comment><USER2> I'm 32, and on my second startup. I have a wife and a baby girl. When my daughter was born, I found that I had more drive, as I want to create a good future for my family. This pushes me to do more and work harder. Age is not an issue, unless you make it one.

I would look to your heart to guide you, if a startup is something you want to do, just do it. If your worried about the future than you might be better off staying in the corporate world.

I figure it works like this, a startup is a huge learning curve. Your first one might not be successful, but if you are open to continue on learning, you'll eventually nail it right if you have fiery determination to push through walls.

Regarding choosing a team, I don't look at someone's age, I care about who they are, and what skills they have; and, what they can bring to my startup. Oh and of course, the right attitude and fit the culture that I'm trying to set in my team.

The question I would ask myself if I were you, is this - why do you want to start a startup? Ponder on this question for a bit, then imagine where you see yourself in the future. If this looks like a company job, than you have your answer. Likewise holds true for startups.

Cheer up, you're still young!

</comment><comment><USER3> Do you want to join an existing startup that has promise or start your own? In both cases, you want to get a sense for how much value and potential the idea has.

If you're thinking of starting your own, you should join some startup oriented meetup groups, make some friends, maybe find some cofounders who can split the load or take on other kinds of responsibilities that you'd prefer not to.

Startups require effort, which takes motivation, which means you should try to get it so that you do work you actually want to do so that its easier to commit to working more and with the right attitude to make you successful.

</comment><comment><USER4> It sounds like what you're asking is "would a startup hire me?" rather than "should I found a startup?"

Yes, a startup would hire you. Perhaps not as easily in Silicon Valley, which is notorious for ageism. Get your resume to a recruiter that specializes in programmers.

In case this was on your radar at all: no, you should not found a startup. Most people who "should" found a startup can't imagine doing anything else. It drives everything they do.

<comment><AUTHOR> >In case this was on your radar at all: no, you should not found a startup. Most people who "should" found a startup can't imagine doing anything else. It drives everything they do.

So you're claiming that founding a startup can only be valid if it's a purely emotional urge rather than identifying a rational opportunity? That's black and white thinking.

<comment><USER4> Founding a startup is not rational. The vast majority of people lose a ton of money at it. It's not a good way to make any money.

There was an article a few years back that analyzed common traits among successful founders. There weren't many of them, but irrational optimism was one.

VCs are looking for people "with their hair on fire" for a reason. Starting a company is a painful, back-breaking, alienating grind, and if you don't have an intense emotional urge to get through it, you just won't.

It'd be nice if it weren't the case, but emotions are absolutely vital in understanding and making decisions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why exactly will you be unworthy for hiring at 38-40??? I am 34 and been absent from programming for 6-7 years for reasons similar to yours. All I can tell you is that I am very hot in the job market.

</comment><comment><USER6> What's the worst case scenario here, and what else you got that's better.

</comment><comment><USER7> You are 34. And a baby. Ok that may be going too far. But 30-40 is the perfect age.</comment>


The Beholden State: How public sector unions broke California - <AUTHOR> http://city-journal.org/2010/20_2_california-unions.html

<comment><USER2> _City Journal is a quarterly magazine, published by the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a free market think tank based out of New York City._

This is not an impartial source when it comes to California's problems, not that they are wrong, unions are part of the problem, but there's also the 2/3 rule for raising taxes, corrupt and ineffective politicians who have constructed non-competitive districts for themselves, the initiative system and ultimately California voters who apparently don't give a rats ass about anything unless it is approving more services and lower taxes for themselves.

<comment><USER3> > VOTERS who apparently don't give a rats ass about anything unless it is > approving more services and lower taxes for themselves.

California has the highest state taxes in almost every tax category, from personal income, to corporate income, to minimum corporate tax ($800 corporate taxes payable if you broke even or lost money, ouch), highest vehicle registration costs, vehicle re-sale taxes, high sales tax, high hotel taxes, etc, etc.

It doesn't matter how much money you bring in if you consistently spend more than it.

<comment><USER4> That, to me, is the real point here. You could not imagine a state or country with more going for it. Farming, the technological and entertainment hubs of the world along with a climate that produces idealic beaches, snow covered mountains and an ideal enviornment for theme parks (little rain combined with mild temp).

California should be studied as what not to do because the fact that it has become so screwed up is almost beyond belief

Edit: I forgot shipping. One whole side of the state is along the pacific and we're the closest landlocked state to Asia where all the cheap goods are made

<comment><USER5> I'm expanding a startup in Texas or Washington State due to not just the high costs of California, but the uncertainty -- the state is basically bankrupt, as are many local municipalities, and it's really unclear what changes will happen as a result.

WA's government is better, but not vastly; TX seems like the most solvent state with a viable startup nexus (I don't see Alaska becoming a startup center unless global warming vastly improves things :).

<comment><USER6> North Dakota has a budget surplus, but is not going to be a startup culture anytime soon. Although a lot of towns have fiber to the home.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> No, the stupid 2/3rds rule to pass a budget did that.

Unions are just one of the many special interests that win from that silly constitutional issue.

Supermajorities to do normal things are bad.

If they had a normal budgetary process, then they'd have more normal repubs cut taxes/services vs dems add them sort of dynamic that the rest of the country does.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you elaborate on that? I don't see a direct causal link between two- thirds vote requirements and higher union pension obligations, and your comment appears to be popular.

<comment><USER4> Though not the original commenter I can elaborate.

The people of California are well intentioned. So they tried a very liberal approach to their public employees pensions. This quickly got out of control. But the fact that they need 2/3rds of the vote to get anything done combined with special interest money has made it impossible to repeal this well intentioned system that simply doesn't work. Because doing so would require a cut in the budget for said program. So we're being bankrupted.

This is true of many of California's problems. Our State Government lacks the ability to even pass a budget on time so repealing the public sector mess that has been created is far beyond what they are able to accomplish

<comment><USER8> > But the fact that they need 2/3rds of the vote to get anything done combined > with special interest money has made it impossible to repeal this well > intentioned system that simply doesn't work. Because doing so would require > a cut in the budget for said program.

Repubs are just under 40% of the CA legislature.

The stereotype is that repubs would cut any budget, so you're most of the way to a cut without any Dems.

The 2/3 req means that around a third of the Dems have to agree to a cut.

A majority reqt means that around one sixth of the Dems have to agree to a cut.

In other words, the reason that CA doesn't cut things is that so few Dems are unwilling to do so.

The reason that CA's spending goes up is that all of the Dems want it to go up and they manage to find a Repub or two to go along.

Do you really think that letting Dems pass a budget without any Repub votes (and losing some Dem votes) would result in lower spending?

<comment><USER7> There are 2 ways to get a balanced budget:

Raise Taxes

OR

Cut Services

If you strip the 2/3rds rule at the moment, you'll see taxes go up. And you know what party high taxes are great for, republicans. You'll get a more active republican party and you'll be able to win more seats, especially after the taxes go up.

Most importantly, you'll get fiscal republicans running for office, instead of social republicans, and independent and some dems are much more likely to defect to social republicans than moral republicans.

So if you ditch the 2/3rds rule, you'll get 4 years of democratic rule, and you'll have a good shot at gaining republican control of the house after that.

Remember, California is not the liberal mecca people portray it as in the East Coast media. It's a very purple state which has some very republican ideas widely popular in the state along with some very relaxed republicans which have wide voter approval. It's the state of Regan, that keeps hiring republican governors for some reason. While right now, most of the legislators are democrats, if the 2/3rds rule ended, republicans could actually win the legislature.

And more importantly, BOTH parties could get working budgets that don't leave the state doing wacky things with furloghs, random shutdowns, and paying people in scrip.

Remember, killing the 2/3rds rule _also allows repubs to be repubs_. The teachers unions and prisons unions in Cali will support republicans as well as long as they're on board with cuts. Republicans now are in the tenuous position of having to support organized labor to get elected. That's a very odd message to support in today's republican party.

It's just people who are _terrified of the other side_ rather than terrified of broken government who keep the state locked up in the status quo instead of in the 2 stable working states it could be in.

<comment><USER8> > The teachers unions and prisons unions in Cali will support republicans as > well as long as they're on board with cuts.

Since neither the teachers' nor prison guards' unions are on board with cuts....

If you really think that either one will change, please supply supporting evidence beyond "they need to do it" and "It must be true because I need it to support my conclusion".

I don't expect either union to support cuts in their budgets.

<comment><USER7> That was actually supposed to say 'no cuts'

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> California state spending doubled between 1996 and 2006. The problem is not that not enough money can be taken from the taxpayer.

I think whoever and however things are decided, spending with debt ought to be as hard as spending with tax money.

And this practice where you work tons of overtime in your last year and get paid extra for those hours for the rest of your life is simple thievery. Who in their right mind would agree to pay for such a thing?

<comment><USER10> In nominal terms yes, but over that period, there was also inflation, population growth, and a rise in standards of living. If you look at state spending as a percentage of state GDP, it's pretty flat from 1996-2006, basically wobbling on either side of 20%, until the current recession when it jumps up to ~25%.

      1995: 19.7%
      2000: 18.2%
      2005: 20.8%
      2008: 22.3%
      2010 (est): 24.8%

Source: [http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=19...](http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=1990_2010&view=1&expand=&units=b&fy=fy10&chart=F0-total&bar=1&stack=1&size=m&title=&state=CA&color=c&local=s)

<comment><USER8> State GDP is a strange way to measure things.

For example, Google's growth doesn't cause a proportional growth in the demand for govt services. If anything, Google's grown decreases said demand through the economic activity multiplier. (Folks who benefit from that growth spend money, which employs people and so on.)

<comment><USER10> I agree there are other ways, but it's a vague proxy for inflation+population+standards of living, and I don't currently have available a better proxy. If government spending is staying constant as a proportion of GDP, it just means that government services are growing exactly in line with everything else, with an unchanged private:public sector balance.

You can't _just_ use inflation, because if, say, median wages rise faster than inflation, then the cost to the government of the same amount of labor will typically rise faster than inflation as well. (This is one reason Alabama has low spending, because cost of living, land, and prevailing wages in Alabama are low.)

What people expect out of government services also rises roughly with GDP: a spectrum from poor countries, where not having A/C in government offices is fine, as are overburdened slow trains and pot-hole-filled roads, to advanced countries, where people start wanting things like internet-enabled services, high-speed rail, and modern freeways.

<comment><USER8> CA got its modern freeways in the 70s. It failed to maintain them.

> You can't just use inflation, because if, say, median wages rise faster than > inflation, then the cost to the government of the same amount of labor will > typically rise faster than inflation as well.

You can, however, look at spending on existing programs and new programs separately. On existing programs, you look at why you spent more - was to maintain the same level of service, to pay more, or to expand. With new programs, you can ask similar questions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Anecdote: I know a couple, she a former high-level bureaucrat for the state of Ca., he a former mid-level Ca. bureaucrat. I say former because they both retired at 55. I don't claim to know much about the public employee's retirement system. I do know public employees do not pay into Social Security, and no one can retire on SS at age 55. I also know it's very likely this couple will live long enough so that they both enjoy more years in retirement than the people of Ca. paid them to do something productive.

<comment><USER12> Hopefully they will find a nice low-tax state to live in!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> We also have the problems with having a huge illegal immigrant population and the associated costs with it. (education, health care, public assistance) When you add it all up, California is in pretty bad shape.

<comment><USER14> Undocumented workers pay more in taxes (automatically withheld from their paychecks just like everyone else's) than they take out in services.

<comment><USER5> I think that is not accurate.

While undocumented workers pay more into FICA-funded programs than they take out in services, those are generally federal.

Illegals probably consume higher per-capita services than legal immigrants or citizens, if for no other reason than being lower income. Lower income people consume roughly comparable amounts of some services, and consume higher per capita police, locally-funded health clinic, etc. resources. As well, they're unlikely to pay as much per capita property tax (via rentals). If they have children, their education would cost more (due to ESL programs), although I'm not sure what the rate of having children is among this class.

<comment><USER15> I was in a Bilingual kindergarten class in Texas, which has been a lifelong boon, as a native English speaker. Children pick up language pretty easily. If we're putting the adults through ESL courses, that could be a serious drain.

Even more for children born in the states - many won't ever properly learn Spanish, even when their parents mostly speak it in the home.

On the rest of your points, undocumented workers primarily rely on charity, not on the government. They don't want to run the risk more often that they need to. They're not going to go to any free clinics that accept tax dollars, and they're not going to want to attract the attention of the police.

<comment><USER5> Second (and more) languages are definitely valuable for the US -- having immigrants living in the US with fluency in their heritage language as well as English makes it easier for US companies to do business in foreign countries, and domestic people learning foreign languages helps as well.

I tried to find stats on the net costs of illegal immigrants resident in the US, and really couldn't find anything conclusive. The best information seems to be that they could impose slight net costs on some communities, but that it's a relatively minor amount relative to the size of budgets.

I definitely wouldn't say California's problems are mainly due to illegal immigration. I'm just curious why it is so much more of a political issue in some states than others.

<comment><USER6> knowing the language of the majority makes you normal; knowing your own language and the language of the majority give you an advantage; not knowing the language of the majority sets you up to be a lifelong victim and pawn of people who seek power in your name

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The idea that California's only budget problem is that they can't raise property taxes easy enough sounds suspiciously like tribalistic thinking.</comment>


E-Commerce: Convenience Built on a Mountain of Cardboard - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/16/science/recycling-cardboard-online-shopping-environment.html <comment><USER2> What bothers me is not really the cardboard. At least cardboard is from a renewable resource, can be recycled and is biodegradeable.

The sheer amount of plastics used unnecessarily is depressing. Tech is especially bad for this and my pet hate of coating boxes with plastic just so they're a little shinier.

It's a PSU, I doubt I'm even going to _read_ the box. It won't influence my purchase. I don't need a plastic wallet for the spare cables either. Try an elastic band, or a cardboard box. A mouse mat doesn't need three layers of plasticised packaging large enough to put an IBM model M inside (hello Corsair).

Sometimes I wonder if the manufacturer is actually _wishing_ for the destruction of the planet. There's no sane reason for a USB stick, cable or mouse mat to come in tamper sealed plastic, with multiple layers and trays inside.

The more we adopt online shopping the more the manufacturers seem to want to supply everything in point of sale displays.

Then Amazon send it to you in a box the size of a small filing cabinet.</comment>


Ask HN: Building a news filter app, any suggestions? - <AUTHOR>

Hi everyone!
We're building a product called "News Filter". It will filter Hacker News, Designer News, Product Hunt and Dribbble in order to what users want.
We wonder if you have any ideas or suggestions about filters we can include. (e.g. if a post hits to homepage, specific user's posts with more than 50 comments, post title includes "Yo" etc.)
BTW, if you want to check the process out, please be our guest on http://newsfilter.co
Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> How about what is hot? ;) I know that that is not a filter, but it would sure be a nice thing to see. There will surely be a lot of content, but since I don't have time to constantly check X, Y, Z... I would really appreciate summary or some hot-list.

<comment><AUTHOR> we thought users should have these kinds of filters too. Almost everyone wants to see what's hot, but the meaning of the term "hot" may vary person to person. So we thought users can have filters like "commented 20 times in last hour" etc. in order to completely fill their own meaning of "hot" :) btw, thank you!</comment></comment>